


Wormword

by Duck_Life



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Rich's Lisp Written Phonetically I'M SORRY, Science Fiction, Supernatural Illnesses, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 16:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11422098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Sufferers of Wormword experience violent headaches, fever and eventual mental collapse.OR, the Squip is much worse than just a gray, oblong pill.





	Wormword

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I wanna apologize for a.) the utter incomprehensibility of this weird-ass fic and b.) writing out Rich's lisp phonetically at the end, I just had to do it.   
> The story behind this story is that I was looking up Hanahaki disease (which I still don't really get) and wound up on a whole Wikipedia page of fictional diseases. And I learned about "Wormword" and it sounded cool as hell so... here's a whole BMC fic about it.

> From [“Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia” by China Mieville](https://books.google.com/books?id=yTYFF6Y2lpUC&pg=PT75&lpg=PT75&dq=wormword+symptoms+jake&source=bl&ots=KiXA-RMrY5&sig=0VlhBl3FfZ5ZuqcYesKfT9fu5zE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwibwP-XrPXUAhXHbT4KHdCNCg4Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=wormword%20symptoms%20jake&f=false): Buscard’s murrain, or “Wormword,” is an echolalia-like disease in which a specific pronunciation of a certain word—the "wormword"—leads to fatally degenerative cognitive ability as a result of an encephalopathy. Buscard's Murrain is infectious, as the afflicted desire to hear others pronounce the wormword.

**TORPID**

“And then… I got a Squip,” Rich says conspiratorially, his eyes looking a little crazed.

Jeremy opens his mouth to repeat what he just heard, but something twists in his gut, apprehension and concern knotting in his stomach. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up and instead of echoing Rich he asks, “You got… quick?”

“Not quick,” Rich says, assuming he misheard. “ _ Squip _ .”

“I’ve just never heard of… it… before,” Jeremy stammers, still avoiding the word. Every time Rich says it,  _ Squip _ , the smaller boy winces and clutches his head, so Jeremy sticks to his plan of not saying it. 

“Exactly,” Rich says. “This is some top-secret can’t-even-look-it-up-on-the-internet shit.” 

“Is it like drugs?”

“The Squip is better than drugs, Jeremy,” Rich says, and explains the whole thing. How to get one.  _ Where _ to get one. And most importantly, what it does.

Well. Jeremy’s already gone through enough years of being awkward and uncool. He’s ready for a change. So he goes to Payless Shoes with Michael, and when the salesperson asks what they’re there for, Jeremy again stays cautious. “It’s a… gray oblong pill,” he says. 

“I know what you’re here for,” the salesperson says, pulling out a shoebox. 401 dollars later, Jeremy stands in the mall. And waits. And suddenly…

He feels the searing pain through his head, the bursts of electricity raking up and down his spine, through his nervous system. “Ow!”

_ Please excuse some mild discomfort _ , a voice in his head says smoothly. When the process is finally, agonizingly complete, the Squip smiles at him.  _ Jeremy Heere, welcome to your Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor… your SQUIP.  _

The word, again, makes Jeremy’s ears tingle uncomfortably. “Yeah, great,” he mumbles, about to ask the Squip for advice when the supercomputer jumps right into correcting his posture, then his clothing choices. 

It goes on.

At play rehearsal the next day, the Squip helps Jeremy memorize the words he needs to say, and he actually feels… good, standing up on stage in front of people. Confident. He wasn’t expecting that.

When Michael asks Jeremy if he wants to hang out, Jeremy turns him down. The Squip is right. It’s time for him to upgrade. 

**PREFATORY**

Jeremy escapes the raucous noise of the party and ducks into Jake Dillinger’s bathroom, turns around only to find… Michael. 

“You’re speechless,” Michael comments. “Squip got your tongue?”

“Please don’t say that word,” Jeremy says, his head heavy. 

“What, Squip?” Michael says, looking annoyed. “What, I’m not even allowed to talk about it? I’m not ‘worthy’ of you  _ or _ your Squip, huh?” 

Jeremy shakes his head rapidly, the word clouding his thoughts.  _ SquipSquipSquip _ . He could say it. He could tell Michael,  _ My Squip is off _ , he could just keep saying the word, feel the way the air whisks out of his mouth when he pronounces the S, the QU, how his breath puffs out on the P. It would be so easy to just say it. 

What’s he so worried about, anyway? 

“Whatever,” Michael says. “I found some stuff out about the S… uh.” He taps the side of his head. Jeremy understands. 

“How?” he says. “There’s nothing on the internet.” 

“That’s why I didn’t look on the internet,” Michael says. “I went where no one would think to go for information…  _ the public library _ .” Jeremy lets out a theatrical gasp to humor him, and then Michael pulls out a heavy-looking book. “The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases.”

“ _ Pocket _ guide?” Jeremy says skeptically, looking at the hefty book. 

“It’s just a word,” Michael says. He flips open the book, all the pages see-through thin and torn in places. “You need to see this, Jeremy.” 

Setting aside his concerns and social woes for a moment, Jeremy climbs into the bathtub with Michael and the two of them sit there, poring over the medical text. The Squip is mentioned in an entry about Buscard’s Murrain, a degenerative brain disease also known as Wormword. Jeremy’s eyes blur as he absorbs the words on the page.  _ Slowly failing mental faculties… severe mood swings…  mental collapse… permanent vegetative state... _

“Wait a minute,” Jeremy says, squinting at the page. “This says there were cases in 1775, 1810… Michael, it’s a supercomputer. It wasn’t around back then. This is just a coincidence.” 

“Maybe it can come up in other forms, like that Star Trek episode where Jack the Ripper possesses the computer,” Michael says, sounding a little desperate. “But look, right there it says the wormword is usually rendered S-Q-U-I-P. Explain that!” 

“I don’t know!” Jeremy says, standing up. “But you’re wasting my time. I really thought this was something serious.” He feels odd, off-balance. A second ago he just felt thrilled to be next to Michael again, talking to him, sitting with him… now he feels cold and angry.  _ Severe mood swings…  _ “Don’t bother me with this again, okay? It’s a stupid book, it has nothing to do with my Squip.”

He doesn’t even notice that he said the word. That it’s the first time he actually let himself say it. “Jeremy, I’m really worried about you,” Michael says, jumping up in front of him. “This Squip is bad news.” 

“Move.”

“Or you’ll what?”

Jeremy’s head pounds. “Get out of my way, loser.”

Out in Jake’s family room, Rich scrambles from person to person, looking a little deranged. “Got any Mountain Dew Red?” he pleads, getting frantic. “Does anyone have any Mountain Dew Red? I need Mountain Dew Red!”

“Rich, man, calm down,” Jeremy says, holding his arms out to keep Rich from barrelling into him. “What’s going on?”

“Squip!” Rich shouts without warning. “I mean… I mean… I can’t stop saying it.  _ Squip _ . Dude, my head feels like it’s splitting in half. Squip. You gotta help me.”

“How do I help you?” Jeremy asks, looking around. Rich seems really worked up. 

“Mountain Dew Red,” he says. “Squip, Squip. I need Mountain Dew Red.” 

“And that’ll… fix you?” Jeremy says skeptically. 

Rich grabs tight at his shirtfront, eyes too wide. “ _ It cures the pill but it doesn’t cure the word _ ,” he says, and suddenly runs away, toward the back of the house. 

Jeremy shakes his head. He tries not to think about Rich or Michael. He tries not to think about the Squip. 

**GRANDILOQUENT**

“Did you hear Rich last night?” Jenna Rolan squawks into her phone. “I mean,  _ before _ he set that fire and burned down the house. He was flailing crazy like a freaking monkey, kept screaming something about a ‘Squip.’”

“What does that even mean, anyway?” Chloe asks, rolling her eyes. “‘Squip.’ Sounds made up. Squip, Squip, Squip. Wait, did you say Rich set a fire?” 

“Maybe it’s short for something,” Brooke says when Chloe tells her about it. “Squip, Squip, huh. I don’t know what it would stand for, though.” 

And as the gossip spreads, so does the word. Like fire. 

And the night of the play, Rich is nowhere to be seen. Jeremy’s learned, maybe not everything about the Squip, but enough to realize it’s bad news. He keeps the pills in the shoebox and doesn’t spread them around. 

“I’m not letting you infect the whole school!” he yells to his Squip over the pain in his head. 

_Of course you are, Jeremy,_ the Squip says coolly. _But not with the pills._ _I don’t need those. I never did._

“No…”

_ Up up down down left right A.  _

He can hear Christine on the stage, except that in the middle of her monologue she stops saying words from the script and just… starts saying it. The word. “Squip, Squip, Squip, Squip.” Louder and louder, and soon enough the audience is repeating it, over and over again, louder and louder, “Squip, Squip, Squip, Squip, Squip, Squip, Squip.” 

And then Michael makes an entrance. 

“I told you something bad was happening!” he yells, running toward Jeremy. “What the hell kind of school play is this?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Jeremy says. 

“I do.” Michael holds out a bottle of Mountain Dew Red. “Turns out there  _ was _ something on the internet. This will shut down the pill.”

Jeremy remembers what Rich said now.  _ But it doesn’t cure the word.  _ “Give me that.”

“Wait,” Michael says, holding the bottle out of reach. “I need an apology.”

“You’re right.” Jeremy opens his mouth to say he’s sorry, but… he can’t. Christine’s voice and the Squip’s voice and the voices of the audience echo through his head, stopping him, controlling him. “I’m skkk… I’m… Squip, Squip, Squip…” 

“Jeremy!”

“I can’t…  _ Squip _ … Michael, I think…  _ Squip _ … you were right…  _ Squip _ … I’m sorry…  _ Squip _ …” When Michael grabs Jeremy and pours the Mountain Dew Red down his throat, he manages to stop saying the damn word and lets out an ear-piercing scream. 

Then everything goes black. 

**TREATMENT / TERMINAL PHASE**

Jeremy wakes up in the hospital feeling… empty. Hollow. He startles when a voice speaks up next to him. 

“Feelth like you’re mithing a part of yourthelf, right?” It’s Rich, wrapped in bandages from head to toe. And he has a lisp. “Hurth like a motherfucker, too. Be honetht. What are they thaying about me at thchool?” 

Jeremy just stares.

“That bad, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words feeling strange in his mouth. 

“Don’t be,” Rich says. “I’m finally free of that shiny, happy hive mind… and I’m finally free of that word. You know the betht part of having a lithp?” He smiles, but his eyes look dark. “I can’t thay it. I can’t thay…  _ that word _ . I’ll never have to thay it again.”

“Yeah…” Jeremy says, still confused. But then Michael and his dad show up and explain what happened after he passed out at the play and… he doesn’t feel empty. He feels complete. Like maybe everything’s okay. 

He makes amends with Michael and everything’s alright. He asks out Christine and she says yes and everything’s alright. All in all, a not too heinous day. 

That night, he lays back in bed, worn out but happy. But as he tries to drift off to sleep, he can’t help but murmur to himself, “Squip…” The headaches, the paranoia, the fear, it all bubbles back. “Squip… Squip… Squip…” 

  
  
  



End file.
